In 1955 the Strath report made clear the horrifying consequences of nuclear war. Even a limited nuclear attack, it stated, would destroy the social and economic fabric of the country. Up to 12 million people would eventually die. Food and water would be contaminated. The NHS would be overwhelmed, and industry would be put out of action.
The report recommended establishing a network of nuclear bunkers across the country to protect the civilian population, but the multi-billion-pound cost of such infrastructure was deemed prohibitive. Margaret Thatcher’s administration decided that the priority was to preserve the structure and machinery of the British state by establishing Regional Seats of Government (RSGs).
It was assumed that, in the event of nuclear war, normal democratic government would be put on hold, giving way to what a Home Office representative called in 1982 a “more autocratic” style of government. Regional commissioners would be appointed who would have full control of the governance of their region, taking responsibility for law and order and morale.
Northern Hub in Hexham
The Home Office planned to construct protected accommodation for these officials. Hexham was earmarked as the right spot for the Northern Hub. To keep costs down, nuclear bunkers were created on pre-existing sites which would be made secure for the teams who would run their section of the country in the event of nuclear war.
The site of a former WW2 emergency food storage depot was adapted as Hexham’s RSG. Located on Alemouth Road, adjacent to the railway line, it was in a good position and was already owned by the Crown Estates, so no planning permission was required. It was estimated that fitting it out as an RSG cost £750,000.
Operation Hard Rock and Northumbrians for Peace
Periodically, civil ‘defence’ exercises were carried out to check that all was in working order. The fatuously named ‘Operation Hard Rock’ took place in a blaze of publicity over a weekend in September 1985.
Members of the local CND group, Northumbrians for Peace, decided to add some verisimilitude to the event. A pair of gates was the only access to the bunker, so once the personnel were installed, three Northumbrians for Peace members locked the gates together with a tungsten steel bike lock and dropped the key in the Tyne. An oxyacetylene welder had to be deployed to open the gates and allow the Hard Rockers to go home.
Civil defence system
The RSGs ware at the apex of the nation’s civil ‘defence’ system. Below them in the hierarchy were smaller bunkers for the various tiers of local authority personnel. Beneath them, and out in the countryside, was a series of what amounted to holes in the ground, which were to be staffed by one or two people with a communication mast and equipment to monitor radiation levels.
People deemed to have the right skill set, such as physics teachers, were recruited for training at the Home Office college in Easingwold in Yorkshire, one of three civil defence schools in the UK. No security checks seem to have been carried out because at least one such physics teacher (in post at Hexham’s high school) was a founder member of Northumbrians for Peace.
In the run-up to a nuclear war, it was assumed there would be a three-week ‘period of tension’ which would allow time for everything to be in place before the action started. Somehow the Soviets would know this and play by the rules. Leon Brittan, the then home secretary, was to take charge in the Hexham bunker, supported by senior members of the police and the armed forces and ancillary staff. It was assumed that everyone with a designated place in one of the bunkers would turn up loyally to keep the government running, having abandoned their families to fend for themselves. The civilian population were issued with booklet which told them how to make a DIY shelter.
DIY shelters
According to the brochure, a shelter could be made by unscrewing three doors from their hinges and leaning them against an internal wall. This ‘inner core or refuge’ would be lit by a candle in a flowerpot. Rolled-up duvets and blankets would insulate the ‘roof’.
Inside, food would be cooked over a camping stove. A bucket of sand would serve as a toilet. Jigsaws were recommended to keep the children amused. Battery radios had to be used because transistor radios would be knocked out by the electro-magnetic blast from a nuclear strike. The radios were essential because they would carry reassuring morale-boosting bulletins, and let people know when the WRVS would arrive with meals on wheels.
Northumbrians for Peace built a shelter as described in the brochure in the Market Place in Hexham. Passers-by were invited to inspect what the government had in mind for their protection. They were alarmed to discover that they had been drafted as front-line cannon-fodder in the event of a nuclear war, and they signed up to CND in droves.
‘Protect and Survive’ backfired spectacularly, as did the banning of The War Game, a film made by Peter Watkins for the BBC in 1966. CND groups obtained copies and organised showings. Its realistic depiction of the likely effects of a nuclear war was very effective at increasing support for CND. The film was finally broadcast in 1985.
Some communities formed local survival groups to make their own plans. They met to discuss whether for instance it would be safe to slaughter and eat a cow which was suffering from radiation sickness, or whether a passing frog could be consumed were it first to be rinsed in running water.
Bunker plans
As the relevant local authority in Hexham, the then Tynedale District Council determined to fulfil their designated part in the civil ‘defence’ plans. They decided to build their bunker on top of the Manor Office, the Grade 1 listed 14th-century Old Gaol. Northumbrians for Peace organised a public meeting of councillors, police and fire brigade personnel. They invited a scientist called John Large to address the meeting. A former UK Atomic Energy Authority research fellow and university lecturer, Large demonstrated to the meeting that in the event of a nuclear attack on Newcastle, the planned district council bunker would simply be blown away.
Tynedale Council abandoned the Old Gaol idea and decided instead to excavate the basement of Hexham House, an 18th-century Grade 2 listed building where its offices were located. Northumbrians for Peace again asked Large for his opinion. He said that in the event of a nuclear attack on Newcastle, a stone-built structure like Hexham House would collapse and entomb its occupants below ground. Sadly, the council went ahead anyway. They could have joined the Nuclear Free Zone movement, comprised of local authorities who refused to cooperate with the civil ‘defence’ plans, but they declined to do so.
Christmas Day 1986
On Christmas Day 1986 Northumbrians for Peace attached a large banner from the roof of Hexham House which read ‘BUNKERS ARE BONKERS’. Two members stood on the pile of earth from the excavations, their faces covered by paper bags printed with the words ‘Nuclear fall-out shelter’. They issued a press-release which read “This bunker is as much use as these paper bags on our heads”.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the Iron Curtain lifted with incredible speed, and the Cold War ended. Today there is no trace of Hexham’s Regional Seat of Government: Lidl, MacDonalds and Travelodge occupy the site. Tynedale District Council no longer exists either, and Hexham House is now an upmarket wedding venue. Their bunker remains in the cellar, a monument to a threat that many people assume we no longer face.
United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
But … Britain is one of the nine states possessing nuclear weapons, in defiance of the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty came into effect in January 2021 and its 93 signatories have undertaken not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons.
There is provision for the nuclear-armed states to sign the treaty. Were they to do so, they would enter a time-bound framework for negotiations which would lead to the verified and irreversible elimination of their nuclear weapons programme.
Britain is wedded to its nuclear weapons, and today even the derisory tokenism of the 1980s civil ‘defence’ programme has disappeared. Four submarines of the Royal Navy, armed with Trident missiles, are based at Faslane, a few miles north of Glasgow. One of them is always on patrol.
